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“Where we goin’?” Marion enquired.
“Into the valley. We can get down and stroll awhile and have some private talk, if you will. It’s a pleasant morning.”
Marion laughed again. Bumping and jogging, they made their way along the rough track and into the valley, with Ruff running at Splash’s heels. Once there, Richard drew rein again, dismounted and helped Marion down. He removed Splash’s bridle and hung it on a small tree, eased the girth, hobbled the animal’s forefeet and told Ruff to stay on guard. He offered Marion his arm. “Shall we walk?”
In the priory of St. George’s in Dunster, Christopher Clerk stood in a small monk’s cell, looking about him. He had made it plain that he had no intention of taking vows as a monk, but Father Hugh Meadowes hadn’t cared.
“Take vows as a monk or not—that’s up to you as long as you take vows as a priest. That’s your business in life and you know it. You’ve a vocation, my son. I know one when I see one, and what will your father have to say if you abandon yours? He’s proud of you! You’re not going to let him down and you’re not going to let me down and above all, you’re not going to let God down. You young lunatic! If you hadn’t been willing to swear on a crucifix that you didn’t sleep with the girl, I’d have had to go to the bishop. Do you realise how serious that would have been? Forget her! Forget any oaths you thought you swore. Forget you ever thought you loved her. I doubt it, myself. What sort of a life were you going to drag her into? She’s going to marry someone else, who’ll give her a better future than you ever could!”
“I’d have made my way. I’d have made a life for both of us!”
“And one day your call to the priesthood would have risen up and poisoned it. I know about these things. You’ll finish your studies in the priory and then you’ll stay there and serve the monks and the parishioners. Liza Weaver won’t be among them. She’s leaving the parish. No more argument, my son. I don’t want to repeat what I had to do when you were brought back to the castle, but if I have to, I will.”
His back was still marked from Father Meadowes’s whip. He could only hope that Liza had not been similarly treated. He had not dared to ask, not even when her parents came to see him, to hear him apologise and promise to put Liza from his mind forever. He had had little chance to say anything beyond the apology and the promise. Nicholas had done most of the talking. Some of his remarks had burned more bitterly than Meadowes’s lash. Callow young wantwit. Trying to lead my girl into a life of concealment and poverty. She doesn’t know enough of the world to realise what was ahead. And you say you loved her. Bah!
But all the time, all through that diatribe from Nicholas, and all through Meadowes’s beating, he had prayed inside his head for Liza, hoping that God would let him suffer for them both.
He sat down slowly on the hard, narrow bed. He was thinking about the past. At the beginning it had been his own idea to enter the church. He believed he had been called. Their own parish priest, back in Bristol, had given a homily one Sunday on what a privilege a vocation was; how it was like a summons to a holy army, and how priests and monks followed the banner of Christ just as knights followed the banner of their overlord. The soldiers of Christ fought battles of the spirit, not of the body, and their purpose was to save the souls of their fellow creatures from damnation. There was no nobler calling on earth, said the priest ardently.
Christopher had thought about that homily many times during the following weeks and he had gone to talk to the priest privately, and before very long he had become convinced that he was among those who had been summoned to take Christ for his suzerain. His father had been delighted.
His mother, a practical woman, was less so, and expressed regret that her second son would not marry and have a family. They were willing to help him, she said; he could go as an apprentice to another merchant and could in time become a merchant in his own right, could succeed in the world. But he shook his head and said he must leave the world, in that sense, behind, and his father told her to stop making objections; this was a great honour and he was proud of Christopher.
And he, Christopher, had been proud of himself, sure of himself, had thought of himself as a good soldier of God. And then, as he’d roamed through the fair at Dunster on that spring day, he’d stopped to watch as a dishonest weaver was paraded past for swindling his customers, and realised that the girl standing beside him hated seeing someone put on display like that. She had left the people she was with and walked off alone into the crowd and he had followed, concerned for her in such a gathering, with so many strangers about. She had suspected his intentions and looked sharply around at him, and he had spoken to her, meaning to show kindness, as a priest ought to do, and their eyes had met, and the whole world had changed.
He had known then, in that moment, that his vocation was a horrible mistake, that he was made for the ordinary life of a man, that he was on the wrong path entirely. He’d fought the knowledge off and might have won the fight if Elizabeth Luttrell’s wretched little dog hadn’t run away, and he hadn’t found himself chasing after it and coming face-to-face with Liza Weaver once again. After that, there was no more resisting. His vocation had been nothing but a dream, a youthful ardour trying to find somewhere to put itself and making the wrong choice.
And there was no way back.
He looked around him, at the stone walls of the little cell, at the prie-dieu in the corner, with its embroidered cloth—the only splash of colour in the room. Whatever revelations had struck him when he met Liza, he had ended up here. His vocation might seem unreal to him now, might have faded into nothingness as far as his emotions were concerned, but he was bound to it just the same, a soldier plodding across an arid desert, sworn to the service of his lord whether he liked it or not.
Liza was lost to him and he had been a fool ever to think they could escape together and create any kind of life worth living. She had been rescued from that and from him and probably it was the best thing for her. He understood that now.
What none of them knew, however—though God presumably did—was that what he felt for Liza, and what she felt for him, was real and would remain real all the rest of their lives, even if they never met again. They were sworn to each other, whatever Father Meadowes and the Weavers might say. He said aloud, “I will go on praying for her all my days.”
Yes, he would! And there was nothing anyone could do to interfere with either his private prayers or his memories.
Meanwhile, this priory and this cell were to be his home. Very well. His future had been ruthlessly reorganised and his life sold away. Soldier of God? No, he was a slave, and for life. But his love was unchanged and would remain so until he died.
CHAPTER TEN
CLOUD BLOWING IN
The Valley of the Rocks was a curious place. On the moor and among its surrounding, greener foothills, the water had sculpted the land and was still doing so. Streams ran through nearly every one of the deep, narrow combes that dented the hills as though a giant had repeatedly pressed the side of his hand deep into a collection of vast and well-stuffed cushions. The valley, by contrast, was dry.
It didn’t run down to the sea, but lay parallel to it. Its floor was flat and broad, but on either side, hillsides of bracken and goat-nibbled grass rose steeply to curious crests where grey rock outcrops, weathered into extraordinary shapes, adorned the skylines. Richard knew that the hills to his right were a thin wall between valley and sea, with a drop of hundreds of feet from the hillcrests to the water, most of it sheer cliff with broken rock at its feet.
Ahead, the seaward hillside broke in one place, though even from there, the drop below was still hair-raising. The heights resumed with a tall conical hill topped by an extraordinary mass of rock which looked, from a distance, so like the ruins of an old fortress that most people called it Castle Rock.
There was no one about, except for a goatherd encouraging his flock from one piece of grass to another, up on the slope to the left. He was high up and moving away from them, and showed no sign of having seen them. He certainly wouldn’t disturb them. “Mistress Locke,” said Richard, “as I said, I wish to talk with you. I came here today to find you. I have something to tell you and something to ask you. I hope you will listen.”
“Well, what might all that be about?” asked Marion.
She said it with a smile in her voice, and provocation, too, and when he turned to look at her face, that provocation was in her eyes, as well. The white fire leaped again, shockingly, filling him up. Her hand burned on his arm. He hardly knew how to go on just talking to her. He wanted to throw words and politeness and every last vestige of civilised behaviour away and her clothing with them and his own as well and turn this bleak, lonely valley into a Garden of Eden, with him and Marion as Adam and Eve.
To steady his mind, he quickened the pace, leading her toward the foot of the goat path that wound its way up and around Castle Rock. With a great effort he kept his voice normal as he said, “Mistress Locke, you must understand, even if it disappoints you, that I’ve plans for my son Peter and that there can be no question of a marriage between you. However, I can see very well why he’s lost his heart and his head over you. You are as lovely a wench as I ever saw.”
It was a poor description of her, he thought, nearly as inadequate as when her mother called her pretty. Marion Locke was no conventional beauty. His first impression had been the right one. She was ripe, like a juicy plum. She gave off the very scent of ripeness, of readiness.
“Tell me,” he said, still keeping his voice even with the greatest difficulty, “what if I asked you to think about me instead? I’m a widower these many years and I’d like a wife. Specially, I’d like a wife like you.”
“Oh,” said Marion, and dropped her hand from his arm.
“Why oh?” He caught her hand back and drew her to him. “Come! I’m older than you, but I’m hale enough. You’d get used to farm life, though it’s different from what you know. Marion…”
“But I…no, please,” said Marion, shaking her head and pulling her hand free. She edged away, arousing in him a sudden huntsman’s instinct to give chase.
“Now, don’t shy away from me, sweeting. There’s no need. I just want you to listen to me.” He stepped after her, repossessed himself of her hand and then changed his grasp to her elbow, drawing her back to him, clamping her to his side and walking her steadily on. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m not an enemy. Just listen, my dear.”
Marion didn’t know what to do. The young men she’d flirted with and, well, given way to once or twice—and she knew that she’d taken a risk and been lucky that no harm had come of it—had been easy to manage, even a little shy. She had never felt out of control. She had never encountered anyone like Richard Lanyon before. He was handsome, but he had an aura of danger, something new to her. Besides, this wasn’t decent. She had made love with this man’s son, and here in this very valley, at that. It wasn’t right. Marion’s morals were broad, but not broad enough for that.
But she couldn’t break Richard’s hold and if she did, she knew she couldn’t outdistance him. She could still see the goatherd but he was far away; there was no help there.
They had reached the foot of the path up the Rock. “Let’s climb a little way and see if we can see the coast of Wales,” Richard said, and steered her upward. The path wound, bringing them to the seaward side of the Rock, giving them a view across the Channel and westward down it. He looked down at her, smiling, but then, unable to stop himself, suddenly swung her in front of him, bending forward to kiss her.
His forebear Petroc, the one who had brought the Lanyons to Exmoor, had started life as a Cornish tin miner. That meant a free man, even in the days of villeinage, but it was a hard life of digging and panning, which produced men with muscles like steel ropes.
Petroc had hated it and given it up to breed sheep, though with poor success at first, for Cornish pastures were thin and sheep reared on them grew poor fleeces. However, when the Black Death tore holes in the population and opened, for those who still lived, chances hitherto unimaginable, he had snatched his opportunity and travelled to Somerset, where the grazing, even on the moors, was far better. Here he found success at last with his sheep. But if he had left the harsh days of failure behind him, he hadn’t lost his tin miner’s physique. To those of his descendants who survived, he had handed it down. Richard Lanyon had the thick shoulders and knotted muscles of his ancestors and he scarcely knew his own strength.
Marion, feeling his fingers grip her like pincers of steel, cried out, turning her head away from him. “Master Lanyon, don’t! You’re frightenin’ me!”
Realising that he must have hurt her, he let go. This was no way to go courting. “It’s all right. Don’t be afraid.” Better keep walking; it gave his overheated body something to do. He turned her and guided her onward and up. “Watch your footing—the ground’s rough,” he said, and used that as an excuse to put a heavy arm around her shoulders. “I’d treat you kindly,” he assured her, “and you’d eat well, on the farm. Not so much fish, but much more cream and good meat. The farmworkers’ wives would show you how to do this and that, and…”
“Weather’s changin’,” said Marion.
It was. It was growing colder and the west wind was strengthening. There was no more blue in the sky and the high brown-and-white clouds had given place to low grey ones, flowing in from the far Atlantic. The path had brought them quite high up by now and wisps of cloud were blowing around them, bringing a hint of drizzle. Wales, which had indeed been visible at first though neither of them had paid any attention to it, had vanished.
Marion was shivering, partly with cold, partly with what was now serious alarm. When Richard had come to Lynmouth to see her parents, he’d been just Peter’s father, a farmer in a brown wool jerkin and a hooded cloak, darker than most Somerset men were, and good-looking—she was never unaware of good looks in a man—but all the same, one of her own father’s generation and not, in her mind, a potential lover. But now!
His dark eyes were like Peter’s as far as shape and colour went, but their expression wasn’t the same. Peter’s eyes held an essential kindness, but Richard’s were hot and demanding. He wasn’t offering her love. What he wanted was possession. He wanted to hold and control and enter her, not for her pleasure but only for his own, and he meant to have his way.
Beneath the outer layer of sheer sexiness which enveloped Marion like a rich velvety cloak was a girl who not only had at least some moral sense but a knack of understanding people, too. It had been part of her attraction for young men. She always looked at them as though she knew them quite well already and longed to know them better still.
She said carefully, “You’re kind, Master Lanyon, payin’ court to me like this. But I couldn’t. I mean, I don’t think it ’ud be fitting. My father wouldn’t like it!” The last sentence was an inspiration. It was surely the one thing that might impress this man.
“I’ll talk to your father.” They were nearly up to the rock outcrop on top of the Rock, although they could hardly see it, for the cloud around them was thickening swiftly. “I’ll make him an offer he’ll look at twice, or maybe three times. Marion!” He stopped and swung her to face him once again, grasping her upper arms. “Can’t you see I’ve fallen as deep in love as a man can fall? I’ve fallen further than if I jumped off one of these here cliffs. Don’t let me land on the rocks! Say yes!”
“I can’t! I’m sorry, but I can’t!” Marion was really petrified now. She could not have put into words what she sensed, but if someone had said the words snapping pike to her, she would have said at once, yes, that’s it.
“Why not? Why not?” He hadn’t meant to get angry but the anger rose up in him by itself. He’d never wanted anything or anyone in his life as he wanted this girl. He hadn’t even known one could hunger like this. “What’s wrong with me, eh? What is it about me that’s not good enough for the likes of you?”
“Please! Please don’t. Let me go!”
“No. Say yes. Marion, say yes!”
“Oh, please let me go. I want to go back. My grandmother and my aunt’ll be waiting!” She tried to free herself, and the basket of fish, still dangling from one arm, swung wildly to and fro.
“We’re not going back yet. Not until you say yes. Not even if we have to stay up here all today and all tonight. I’ve got to have you, Marion. You’re a temptress and I can’t say no to you, any more than you can say no to me. Let me prove it!”
“No! Let go!” Marion shouted it at the top of her voice and jerked backward, kicking him on the shin in the process. Richard swore and released her, but remained planted like a wall between her and the downward path. She wanted to get away from him so much that she found herself turning and scrambling on uphill instead. He came after her and caught her up at the foot of the outcrop. It towered above them. There was grass beneath their feet, and a wide place to stand, safe enough close to the outcrop, but perilous at the edge, for here they were immediately above the sea and the grassy space ended at the edge of a cliff.
“I said, let me prove it. Let me show you!” He had hold of her again and when Marion tried once more to shout no! he muffled the sound by crushing her mouth with his. Not that there was anyone who could have heard her, anyway, for the goatherd was now out of both sight and hearing, even if the cloud all around them hadn’t become as dense as a damp grey fleece. “There!” said Richard, lifting his head at last. “Doesn’t that tell you all you need to know? Don’t you know now that you can’t refuse me?”
“No, I don’t!” Marion shrieked, kicking him again. He pulled her hard against him and this time she lowered her head and sank her teeth into his wrist. He swore, and she stamped on his foot. They wrestled, swaying back and forth. The cloud, as much drizzle as vapour, got in their hair and their mouths and confused their vision. For one moment, with the greyness all around them, they couldn’t even see the looming wall of the outcrop. It was only feet away, but they couldn’t have told in which direction. Marion, struggling, kicking, shouting, “No, no, no!” at last broke free and threw herself sideways to avoid his clutching hands.
And then was gone.
It was as sudden, as total, as incredible as that. One moment she had been there, a crazed harpy, fighting him; the next, he was alone on Castle Rock, in a world that seemed to be made of blowing cloud and wetness. But not a silent world, or not immediately, for as she felt herself go over the edge, the rock and grass vanishing from under her feet, Marion screamed.
Till the day he died, he would never forget that scream. Throughout all the years to come, it would echo in his ears. It went on for what seemed an eternity, fading downward but continuing, continuing—and then abruptly ceasing, as though a blade had cut it off.
Seconds ago she had been here, with him, alive and shouting and struggling against him. He couldn’t believe that she was just—gone.
And gone forever, at that. The capricious wind tore a rent in the vapours and he walked, trembling, to the edge to look downward. Stupidly, pointlessly, he shouted her name. “Marion! Marion, Marion!” There was no answer. Between the wisps of cloud blowing past beneath him—how unnatural, to look down upon cloud!—he glimpsed, briefly and horribly, the sea and rocks at the bottom. His head swam. He staggered backward to safety, before that yawning drop could drag him to oblivion, as well. It occurred to him, thinking of that final struggle, that it could have been him just as easily as Marion.
In which case, he would have been dead, as she was. No one could survive that fall. The tide at the cliff foot was rising; he had seen the white foam boiling in over the fallen rocks, which were a peril to ships all along this coast. Marion had fallen into that. The rocks had broken her and the sea had swallowed her up. She had been wiped out of the world, and if he hadn’t actually pushed her, well, he had frightened her into falling. It was a poor distinction.
He slumped down with his back against the outcrop. The cloud closed in again. He still struggled with disbelief, but the silence slowly brought it home. He was, as near as made no difference, a murderer.
No one knew he was here, though. He had not told anyone he was coming here; he was supposed to be out looking for sheep. He had ridden over the moor, taking the shortest way, and not seen a soul on the way. He hadn’t ridden through Lynton, either. And in this weather he wasn’t likely to meet many people on the way back. In fact, he’d be glad of Splash’s homing instinct. People got lost in mists easily, but horses didn’t.
He could go home. He could pretend he had never come near Lynton or this valley. At least there was one thing. He couldn’t marry Marion now, but neither could Peter. He almost felt a sense of relief, as though she had put a spell on him, which was now lifted. Perhaps she had been a witch, and in that case the world was well rid of her.
He repeated this to himself, firmly, several times. Then, careful of his footing in the bad visibility, he started down the winding path around Castle Rock. Down on the floor of the valley it was drizzling, but it was below the cloud itself and he could once more see where he was going. He glanced back once at the Rock. It stood tall, wreathed in the drifting vapours, but with an air of menace, as though it was aware of him and was ill-wishing him. Hurriedly he turned his back and made off to where he had left Splash. Ruff was lying down but got up at his master’s approach, whining with pleasure. Splash, too, seemed glad to see him. He bridled the horse, removed the hobbles, tightened the saddle girth and mounted, to begin the journey home.
It would take time but that was all the better, for his hands had trembled as he bridled his mount. He needed time to recover. Thank God no one had seen him. Thank God no one knew he had ever been here.
The goatherd, a lad of fifteen, had in fact seen Richard and Marion arrive, leave the horse and walk on along the valley to start climbing the Rock. He had noticed that the woman had remarkable hair, and a very attractive, not to say come-hither way of walking, and that they had a dog with them and that their horse was an odd colour, with dark grey dapples all running into each other. He had never seen any of them before as far as he knew. Most of his life was spent in the valley, along with his master’s goats; even Marion had not hitherto crossed his path. Few people ever came into the valley. He wondered what they were doing there, but his business, after all, was to look after the goats.
The horse and dog had gone when, after settling his charges on fresh grass and attending to a cut on the leg of a limping nanny, he came down the hillside to escape the weather and eat his midday bread and cheese in a little shelter he had built for himself. The strangers had presumably come back, collected their animals and left.
A month or so later, local gossip reached him about a Lynmouth girl who had run away from home, but he made no connection between the gossip and the couple he had seen.
Richard’s route home took him high onto the moors and back into the mist. He let Splash take his time and ate his bread and meat in the saddle. As at last he approached Allerbrook, he was both surprised and pleased to come across his own missing sheep, their fleeces spangled with damp, nibbling dismally at the thin autumn grasses and not at all unwilling to be rounded up by Ruff and shepherded home to the better pastures lower down.
Another half hour and he was there, riding in with them, a respectable farmer and shepherd who had gone out on the moor to look for missing stock, found them and brought them back.
Peter came home shortly afterward, complaining that he had not found any sheep. Richard described how he had searched in vain in the mist for hours and then discovered them just after he had given up trying.
All the rest of that day the talk was of nothing but sheep. In the morning, however, Richard remarked to Peter that they ought to ask Nicholas Weaver to bring Liza over for a visit to her future home, and a formal betrothal.
Peter, without answering, swallowed his final mouthful of breakfast and stalked out of the kitchen to go about his day’s work. Richard glared at his son’s retreating back, but for the moment held his tongue. Clearly he would have to think about this.
“The master’s got something on his mind,” Betsy said to Higg three nights later as they settled to sleep on the straw-filled mattress in their cottage. “He’s been goin’ around all grim-faced and hardly hears what’s said to him. He don’t look like he sleeps at night. And it’s plain as the nose on your face that him and Master Peter b’ain’t hardly on speakin’ terms.”
“Not much we can do about it,” said Higg tersely.
“I don’t like the look of things. Peter don’t want this marriage the master’s planned for ’un, and you know what Master Richard is like for getting ’un’s own way. Just like his father, he’s turning out to be. He’ll have his way, mark my words, but whether it’ll be a happy house afterward or not, I wouldn’t like to guess.”
“Let’s worry about that when it happens,” said Higg stolidly.
The fact that Marion no longer existed meant that she couldn’t now marry Peter, but Peter didn’t yet know this. Somehow or other he must be informed, and then coaxed into standing before a priest with Liza Weaver. But how? Richard asked himself, lying awake on his bed.
It was all too true that he was sleeping badly. Hour after hour, every night, slumber eluded him, while he relived that ill-fated walk through the Valley of the Rocks, and when at last he did sleep, he dreamed of it. Night after night, Marion’s last scream echoed for him again. What had it been like for her, throughout that long fall, knowing that she was still herself, healthy and alive, but would in the next few seconds be smashed and dead and that there was no miracle in the world that could save her? Sometimes he dreamed that he was the one who was falling.
She had died because he had tried to force his will on her. It seemed that compelling people to do one’s bidding could be disastrous. How then was he to force his will on Peter? Well, once Peter knew that Marion had disappeared, he might decide to be sensible of his own accord. With luck, he would. But how on earth was he to be told?
No one must suspect that Richard knew more than he should. Only, time was pressing and mustn’t be wasted. The betrothal to Liza ought to happen soon or Nicholas would be raising his eyebrows, and he’d expect the wedding to take place soon after. How much time would Peter need to get over the shock of learning that Marion was gone forever?
He’d killed her…no, she’d died in an unfortunate accident last Tuesday. Bit by bit, a scheme emerged.
On October 27, the following Saturday, as he and Peter went out after a breakfast at which neither had spoken to the other, he said, “Look here, boy, I’m tired of your dismal face round here. So be it. You go to Lynmouth and see Master Locke and ask him for Marion if you’re so determined. I don’t fancy he’ll agree and it’ll be for him to say. But maybe after you’ve talked to him, you’ll see that she’s not for you, and you can stop treating me as if I were a leper.”
“And what if he says yes?”
“Then he says yes. But you’d better bring her here before you handfast yourself to her. She might not like the look of Allerbrook. No betrothal until she’s seen what she’s coming to. Saddle your pony and go.”
Fifteen minutes later Peter was on his way, with a leather flask of spring water and a rabbit pasty for his midday meal, and hope in every line of his retreating back.
He returned in the afternoon, riding slowly. Richard, who had arranged to be close to the farmhouse all day, wandered into the farmyard to meet him as he was unsaddling. “So you’re back. How did it go?”
The face that his son turned to him was the face of grief, bloodless and stricken. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.”
“Can’t believe what?”
“She’s gone! Just gone. The last time she went to take some herrings to her grandmother and her aunt, she never got there! But last year she was seen at times with a sailor from some Norwegian ship or other, and that ship’s been back in Lynmouth harbour lately and Marion was seen talking to the sailor again, on the quay. Seems his ship sailed on the very day that Marion set out and didn’t come back. They reckon she’s gone with him. Her father said she was flighty. He said he’d rather she had married me—at least it would be an honest marriage into an honest family! But it’s too late now. She’s…gone!”
And you don’t know how thoroughly and completely she’s gone, Richard said to himself.
“And even if she ever came back…” Peter said, but couldn’t finish the sentence.
Richard, carefully, said, “I’m sorry. You mightn’t believe me, but I am. You’re taking this hard and I’m truly sorry.” You have no idea how sorry or why, and pray God you never will.
“She never…” Peter began, and then stopped short again.
“Never loved you?” Richard said it quietly, though.
“Can’t have done, can she?”
